Memoir of a Murderer (2017)
Memoir of a Murderer: What Stays When We Forget? | 4.5/5
Written by Noah Dietz: 2/8/2025
I’ve had this film on my TBW list for a little while now. After seeing I Saw the Devil and Memories of Murder I was really excited to get back into the gritty detective scene again. Back when I was a teen I used to save up spare change to buy cheap thrillers from the used movie spot in town. Se7en was an obvious hit, but I was also into Morgan Freeman’s lesser known role as Alex Cross in Along Came a Spider and Kiss the Girls. I’ve been waiting for years for something to come along and hit me with the same bug, and it turns out I just had to turn my gaze toward South Korea.
Over the course of Memoir of a Murderer we get to see Kim Byung-su (Sul Kyung-gu) go through his day to day life. We learn he has Alzheimer's and we learn he’s a veterinarian. We also learn he used to be a serial killer. He tells us of his childhood, where his first kill was his abusive father. He also gives us his small list of “rules” about his victims, namely they all deserved it. Whether it was another abusive father, a drunkard who enslaved local orphans, or a woman who killed her dog in a fit of anger, Kim Byung-su justifies his actions. One day while attempting to use the voice recorder his daughter (Kim Seol-hyun) got him, he gets in a car accident. Leaving his car to assess the damage, he realizes the other car may have a body in the trunk. With no formal recourse as the police aren’t much help, Byung-su tries to figure out if there’s a second serial killer on his turf.
Memoir of a Murderer is an incredibly compelling film. Due to the inherently unreliable nature of our narrator, we are left wondering what elements of the story are even true. Byung-su sees on the news that a murder had happened nearby and rushes to his room to check if his shoes are muddy. Did he actually rear end somebody, or did he get rear ended while trying to hide the body in his own car? Seeing him wonder throughout the film whether he can trust his own memories takes the viewer through a range of emotions. Watching as he loses track of the passage of time and questions how different events actually have played out gives us some incredibly well done twists and turns. The concept at play here is one I haven’t seen before, and I feel it was done far more tastefully than I had initially worried when I first heard the summary.
I heartily have to recommend this. From front to back I had a wonderful time, with the final act really hammering home everything set up beforehand and then some. As director Bong Joon-ho once said, "Once you overcome the one-inch tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films."